When The Going Was Good presents five long excerpts from the four travel books Evelyn Waugh wrote between 1929 and 1935, chosen by the author. Starting with a tour of Mediterranean pleasure dens, Waugh pushes on to Abyssinia (where he reports indelibly on the coronation of Haile Selassie), across the continent of South Africa, to the wilds of Brazil and British Guiana, and back to Abyssinia in the wake of the Italian invasion.